Former NYPD officer pleads guilty to drug trafficking conspiracy

December 1, 2023 Robert Abruzzese, Courthouse Editor

U.S. Attorney Breon Peace announced the guilty plea of a disbarred Queens attorney on Friday.Photo: Seth Wenig/AP

U.S. Attorney Breon Peace announced charges against alleged gang members who went on a carjacking spree from Nov. 2022 through Feb. 2023.
Photo: Seth Wenig/AP

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Amaury Abreu, a former officer with the New York City Police Department, pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute and possess cocaine on Wednesday. The plea was entered at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn.

United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace announced the guilty plea, highlighting the gravity of the betrayal.

“Rather than protect and serve, Officer Abreu helped drug traffickers distribute large amounts of cocaine in the Eastern District of New York by giving them confidential law enforcement information. That was a disgraceful breach of public trust,” said U.S. Attorney Peace. “Today’s plea should send the message that police officers who betray the shield and violate the law will be held to account. No one is above the law.”

According to court documents, between January 2016 and October 2020, Abreu was involved in aiding a multinational drug trafficking organization (DTO) with distributors in New York and the Dominican Republic. His role included providing the DTO with confidential law enforcement information, performing warrant checks using the NYPD arrest database, and, on at least one occasion, receiving cocaine from the DTO.

The indictment also details the DTO’s methods of importing multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine into the United States, including through couriers on flights, hidden in mail and tractor trucks from Mexico, and in produce shipments. Law enforcement agents have seized over 350 kilograms of cocaine linked to this DTO since 2016.

The investigation, which led to Abreu’s guilty plea, was a collaborative effort involving the New York City Police Department, Internal Affairs Bureau, Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office.

Abreu, 37, from Hauppauge, New York, now faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.